Ahh yes, the miracle of the Internet.  Pointless blogs about a restaurant, and then the restaurant's pointless website.

King's Fish House.  Imaginative name, huh?  The one here looks identical to the one they have pictured on the site, both inside and out.  It's not a bad decor, and they have enormous mounted fish on the walls, though I suspect they're plastic models, rather than real taxidermied fish.  I took a couple of photos of it from the parking lot, but as I'm discovering, my camera sucks at night time photography.  All light is way overexposed, all shadow is Stygian.  And the whole thing is sort of purple-tinged.  I'll have to experiment with the light settings and color balances to see if there is any way to make it work better for night shots.  It's pretty much worthless for Peeping Tom action now, though.

We had eaten there once before, a couple of months ago, and it was okay, but through a screw up they had to give us a $10 off certificate, so we went back to use that up.  They have semi-high prices, so it would be gone on a drink and appetizer, if we'd gotten one.

When you enter the restaurant there is a hostess at the door who seats you.  Well not literally, but she takes you to a table and gives you a menu, which is a big piece of paper with the entrees on one side and the drinks on the other.  It's a pretty nice place, so they have dozens of wines, beers, all sorts of other drinks, and probably 50 entrees.  There is a huge variety of fish, pretty much every kind you could think of, steaks, wood oven pizza, and sandwiches, and much more.  They must have some pretty talented chefs and quite an inventory system in the kitchen to keep so much stuff on hand.

Anyway, the screw up last time was in the menu.  They apparently have lunch and dinner menus which are virtually identical, other than the prices.  Everything on the dinner menu is about $4 more, to be blunt.  So the Mahi mahi I got would have been $12.95 or so at lunch, but on the dinner menu it's $17.45.  The food is the exact same for lunch or dinner; same side dishes, same portion sizes, etc.  Just more money.

We were accidentally given the lunch menus last time, ordered from them fine, since as I said, the items are all identical.  But when the bill came it looked a bit high, and when we asked about it they realized what had happened, and the assistant manager came out and apologized about twenty times more than we needed him to, and let us (well, let dad) pay the lunch prices, as well as giving us a $10 off coupon for a return visit.  Good customer service, at any rate, though the food was just mediocre.

This time was much the same.  The waiter was hovering a bit much, with his robotic, "How is everything?  Okay thanks, enjoy your dinner." every five minutes getting old in a hurry.  They did hustle right over with my root beer refills though. The same assistant manager who wrote our coupon last time was even roaming around.  He has a disturbingly thick red beard.  The service in general I found a bit much.  Maybe some people enjoy having restaurant employees ask them if everything is wonderful all the time, but I find it irritating after the 4th visit when I'm still working on a piece of bread.  I don't go to a restaurant to a waiter, I go there to eat and talk to the people/person at my table.  Waiter advice: be handy if I want something, but otherwise go away.  And be quiet. Unless you're a really hot chick, in which case exceptions can be made.  *he said magnanimously*

Anyway, they had Cajun Ecuadorian mahi mahi in the specials portion of the menu, and regular Ecuadorian mahi mahi in the "from the grill" portion.  The Cajun version was $1 more, and came with grilled pineapple salsa, and of course Cajun spices, meaning they put a ton of pepper on one side and grill it black.  I got the Cajun style, since I like food spicy.

It wasn't of course, you never get anything spicy to eat anymore in America, other than in a Chinese or Mexican place, and even then you have to ask for it.

It was lucky that I got the Cajun style though, since the mahi mahi was pretty flavorless.  It's a relatively bland fish, I realize, but I don't like the fishy-tasting salmon that most people prefer, so the blandness of it doesn't really bother me.  However it was a bit too bland, with only the blackened surface adding any spicy taste, and it was just a peppery flavor that laid there, rather than leaping up and throttling me, as I secretly hoped for.  It wasn't real good texture either, sort of spongy, and the grilled veggies with it were a few limp bits of purple onion and about 8 small cubes of pineapple, which did nothing to give it an Island flavor.

For sides I had French fries (of course) and garlic mashed potatoes, which was a mistake, since it was too much spuds at once.  I did have a side salad for some greenery, which was crappy.  Just random squares of iceberg, mostly the middle ones that are all white and like flavorless celery.  Even drowned in Ranch they were lack luster.  The fries weren't bad, but weren't great.  They make them very thin and fry them crunchy, with light salt.  Nice texture, though maybe a little too thin/crunchy, but pretty good for restaurant fries.  I need to do a FFs page, when I eventually get the food/recipes section of the site online, since the fries are really the most important part of most meals out.

Dad more or less agreed with my sentiments.  He had some sort of grilled catfish, and thought it was okay, but not that great.  Next time we eat out at a decent place he suggested somewhere in Old Town, where there are tons of nice small restaurants.  As I never go anywhere or do anything, I let him make all the restaurant picks, since he knows places to go, and of course is paying, so I try to be a good date.  You women should take that to heart.  And put out, damnit.

The other semi-interesting subtext of the dinner was the hostess who greets you at the door giving me several appreciative looks.  I never really can tell if a woman is just being friendly as part of her job, or taking a good look, or even eyeing for an invitation.  Unless she carries it on for so long that there's no way you could misinterpret.  I err on the side of disinterest in all situations, since I don't want to be a pushy asshole and hit on a woman who isn't interested.  Which of course explains a lot about my nonexistent social life.  Anyway, we sat at one table, and then chose to move to another one since the booth wasn't real comfortable.  Dad moved over to test out a chair first, and the hostess came over to the table where I was the bring me along and the menus.  I grabbed them as I got up, and she said something giggly like, "You're doing my job for me."

As we walked over to the new table I caught her eye and handed her back the menus, saying, "Okay, here you are." in a joking voice.  Once we sat down she handed us the menus again and I said, "Oh thanks, a menu!" and she was all smiling and wide-eyed.

I don't really have any idea if this is flirting or what.  I constantly make jokes like that when I'm working, and in my RL, what there is of it, and it's just my personality.  I perpetually see the humor in small events, and that sort of little interaction enlivens my day.  My mind is never on just one thing, it's always viewing situations from multiple perspectives and angles and levels, and when another person is bright enough, or at least on my wavelength enough to see things with the sort of ironic/sarcastic detachment I generally view them with, they'll gain humor from my actions or comments that would go totally over the head of most people.  Or not really over their head, they just wouldn't have any idea something was funny or meant (by me) to be funny, since I usually deadpan my sarcasm.  I'm not one to explain why something is funny, or why something was a joke; I let people who get it get it, and people who don't don't need to have it explained, since they won't think it's funny then, and will just wonder WTF I'm talking about.  My dad is somewhat the same way on humor, but he's not as able to let a joke go by if someone doesn't get it, and will often make some humorous little pun or remark to a waitress/waiter, and then say, "I'm teasing!" with a grin.  Which is probably more humane and personable, but isn't my way.

Anyway, the hostess seemed to like me, or was just being her usual friendly self; as I said, I never know.  Dad noticed that she seemed charmed and commented on it, so perhaps she was.  I of course did absolutely nothing else to interact with her, despite ample opportunity, and will never ever see her again.  Ahh, love.

I console myself with the fact that she was wearing super tight stretch pants and they were either two sizes too small, or her ass was two sizes too large.  And since any woman I even consider talking to much be physical perfection, that ruled her out.

Try that one if you want, it's a handy excuse to never be bothered with dating, since it just eliminates 99% of the population off hand.  And on the very rare occasions you see a 1% body, you can just tell yourself she's way too hot to not have a boyfriend and/or husband, and pass her right by.

You might tell yourself she probably contracted AIDS and Hepatitis C when getting that big ugly tattoo on the small of her back, if you need extra incentive to remain alone.

Yes, Flux's "How to avoid dating" advice rolls on.

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